As many people know, legendary weapons in Cataclysm were something rather trivial. Everyone and their cat and dog got one. I believe that getting such an item should be an epic experience, both in the story line sense of it, but also in the methods employed in obtaining it.
My question is this : how do you want to get a legendary weapon?
This is my idea (please don`t be afraid of the wall of text) :
*The legendary should be used only for the last tier of the expansion ; build it throughout previous tiers*
- guilds which cleared the first raiding tier are approached by a council of their faction in order to take part in a campaign to secure certain parts of Pandaria for its resources, now that the existing threats have been thwarted (mogu,mantid,zandalari,etc)
- taking part in this effort will consist in gathering resources - much in the way of unlocking the gates of AQ but also employing new methods (obtaining a number of gold medals in challenge mode, using the farm system, gathering various materials, completing dailies).This is a faction wide effort and will become more complex as new tiers are released (and the H-A conflict will escalate)
- make use of the scenarios to advance the story line. Create chain quests which tell the story of various weapons lost or hidden in various parts of the world. Use archeology to find clues about them, solo quests for easier parts of the chain, use scenarios to investigate clues.
- Use raids in the 2nd/3rd etc tiers to obtain reputation with the faction council mentioned initially / unlock the next step of the storyline(or something similar)
.*Only one person in the guild can obtain a legendary (2-3 for 25 man guilds) during the expansion (unlock it the next expansion with certain limitations)*
- guilds will work with the races within their faction to recover the legendary - for example the night elf will help you find a the lost staff of Cenarius, which is a healing staff, while the bood elves will find/recover a bow of a great ranger general.
- this way legendaries can have a link to old lore (like the Lich King weapons, with flavour text and such) and will also let you focus on a certain quest chain. Would be interesting to have faction specific weapons ( only alliance can have 2h sword and healing staff, while horde has an exclusive bow and 2h mace), while keeping some common ( tanking shield, polearm etc) but with different names and storyline.
- this means separate story lines for 10 weapons or so. You can do all chains or just focus on one early on if you decided what player will get one. this also means there will not be one legendary, restricting the choice of the guild as to what role/player gets it.
- In the siege of Orgrimmar you will receive a buff (maybe reinforcements) from the faction which legendary you chose to obtain
*Legendary Champion of the Alliance/Horde*
- the person chosen for the weapon will receive this title upon obtaining the legendary and defeating Garrosh in heroic difficulty
- champions will be able to decide which faction attacks Orgrimmar each week thorugh a series of competing scenarios (obtain more resources), better times in challenge modes (leaderboards in faction capitals for each week - champions will need help from guilds or realid friends to complete them) and PvP (groups of each faction`s champions/ champion and squire which can be guildy or friend compete in arena type match 2v2 5v5 10v10).
- attacking Orgrimmar first or second will unlock certain bosses which hold exclussive loot (capes, wrist,belt, certain pants with special stats etc)
This is a model that I think would make legendaries and their bearers really special, while ensuring a large participation from all the server, recognition and both collaboration and strife between factions.
Imho, it is hard enough and exclusive enough that we won`t have a bunch of them, the person getting it won`t be a casual or someone who only logs for the raid. It will be epic enough that the guild and the player will be acknowledged and known by the whole server. It will develop old or new lore, while ensuring a more compelling experience for the people involved.
What do YOU think?